On my last dive to 400 Ft...

[Soggy]

Experience without training does not make one a good deep diver or a good cave diver. Unless Ed has gone through a mentoring program with a trained and experienced diver in those areas, yes, Ed needs more training. What Ed doesn't know can kill him. Cave diving programs and trimix programs are not part of the PADI Money Making Machine like the Boat Diving and Computer Diving specialties. They are meant to teach you how to dive in an environment without killing yourself. Ed probably has just gotten lucky so far.

 

[OWSI176288]

After reading this thread from start to finish.....all I have to say is....."there's an hour of my life I'll never get back"

 

[ghostdiver1957]

Experience without training does not make one a good deep diver or a good cave diver.

I agree... but you might also agree that all the training in the world doesn't necessarily make one a good deep diver or a good cave diver. I have had students take OW classes, pass the written exams with 90% or better, perform in water skills to an acceptable level and they have passed their OW skills tests. This does not necessarily make them good open water divers. The same applies to deep divers and cave divers and wreck divers etc... Just because they take the courses does not mean they will end up being good at it.

 

[Soggy]

I have had students take OW classes, pass the written exams with 90% or better, perform in water skills to an acceptable level and they have passed their OW skills tests. This does not necessarily make them good open water divers.

Maybe you need to redefine what an "acceptable level" is. If performing skills at an acceptable level doesn't make them decent OW divers, then we are evaluating the wrong skills or at the wrong level.

Technical courses are often much more aggressive in training regimines.

Yes, I agree, given the quality of the majority of instruction out there, all training does always produce a good diver. However, good training will usually produce a good diver.

 

[GreenDiverDown]

What type of Diver is Ed? Is he Recreational, Technical or Commercial?

Obviously, Ed has participated in recreational, technical and commercial dives. What's so hard about that? :huh:

What type of diver is Ed? I don't know Ed so I couldn't say.

 

[MikeFerrara]

In recretional diving (not for pay) I don't think we need lines or definitions. It's all for recreational purposes even if some of us dive deeper than others or in wreck and caves.

In "The Technical Diving Encyclopedia" Tom mount suggests that maybe the "tech" in technical diver should really stand for technique. Maybe he has a point.

One of the many complaints I have about my early trainaing is that I really never was allowed to know what was available. I didn't have internet and it was made clear that below 130 ft, staged decompression diving and the like was strictly off limits to mere mortals. I spent lots of time and money taking classes that weren't much good when I should have been getting to the real meat and potatoes of the whole thing.

Eventually I met different divers and had doors and my eyes opened but the industry (the dive shop) which was my only source of information in the beginning did their darndest to keep them closed to many of the possibilities that were out there.

So, I don't think there's anything wrong with clueing students in to the many choices they have. I used to have pictures from our cave dives on the wall of my dive shop. I showed interested students maps, pictures of wrecks and my equipment. I also told about the training my wife and I went through to get there...the good the bad and the ugly. Be clear, I didn't encourage them to follow a similar path but I didn't hide it's existance either even though I wasn't a technical diving instructor and stood little or nothing to gain.

Things like deep diving and cave diving are not for every one but niether is tropical resort diving. I do not believe that we should assume that our students are going to be resort divers and that's what dive training these days is geared for. We assume they don't need real skills as new divers because there will be a DM to watch over them and, IMO, that's dead wrong. The day after getting certified they may be out on lake Superior in their own boat using their side scan sonar to look for new wrecks and they may never go near a resort.

The closest I've ever been to a resort is camping in Florida while I was down there cave diving, staying in a Missouri motel while cave diving there or sleeping in a trailor in Two Rivers Wisconsin while wreck diving there. Those are the things I enjoy and for so much of my diving career, I didn't even know it existed or what training, skills and experience was needed to do it.

PADI has a chart of their educational options. ok but an instructor or shop introducing a student to diving, IMO, should introduce them to diving and not just underwater tourism.

Lastly, I don't think we should hide or whitewash the risks of diving. "In the unlikely event" My ***! If you don't have the knowledge and skills it's not so unlikely! When you screw up underwater the result is often that you are DEAD or worse. When you screw up bowling you just have to buy the next round!

Mike Ferrara,
Founder, Mothers Against Keeping Your Students in the Dark and Trying to Make Tropical Resort Divers Out of Them Whether They Like it or not.

 

[wb416]

[snip]
Mike Ferrara,
Founder, Mothers Against Keeping Your Students in the Dark and Trying to Make Tropical Resort Divers Out of Them Whether They Like it or not.

oh mike... you're a real Mother... alright! There's no denying that!!

cheers!
bob

 

[MikeFerrara]

oh mike... you're a real Mother... alright! There's no denying that!!

cheers!
bob

Thanks Bob.

 

[wb416]

Thanks Bob.

No Worries!!

 

[GDI]

Reading the last pages of this thread (again) I can see why the term Tech Divers really needs to be changed to Advanced Diver. Caves, wrecks, ice, deep, exotic gas mixes, etc all are nothing more than higher more advanced levels of diving. When these forms of diving are done with a recreational intent, then they are still recreational diving. Many divers who plan and conduct such dives do so only for recreational pleasure and for this they are still recreational divers who are diving at a more advanced level.

The problem here is that we feel we need labels to differentiate the levels of advanced divers out there. Lets face it, a diver can be called a advanced diver having as little as 9 dives in their lifetime and holding a c-card that says so. Now don't go off bashing any agency here. Skill level and knowledge obtained through proper training of different diving disciplines is what determines the advanced level label that a diver would have.

Comparing the "Tech" Training agencies to the "Rec" agencies. I can tell you that some of the tech agencies are a not-for-profit corporation. Not all mind you but some.
You will also notice that Tech agencies do not certify divers they train divers, the c-card is a symbol of having passed that training. This may be sematics but in the tenets of the tech agencies this is what is done. You are already a certified diver, you are just taking additional more advanced levels of training.

The rec agencies do have it in their curriculums the risks involved in diving certain environments, diving deep or when using different gas mixtures. However the instructors and this includes the DM who are not instructors fulfilling this role of dive guide, are the worst violators. Many violate the safety rules not because they don't know there is a higher risk, they do so because they do not see the dive site they are diving included in the higher known risk category and thus do not appreciate the risk they are explosing other divers to. And for what the thrill of the dive?

In caves we have the Grim Reaper Signs and Stop Signs stating that unless you are cave trained do not go any further. These list the facts that many a diver has died in caves just like this one "including instructors". Perhaps similar signs should be placed on wrecks and swim throughs such as what is discussed here, maybe then divers will start to understand the risks better. Even with this I believe with no doubt that the instructors who themselves often are not trained for these places will still have the divers follow them through or into such places, all for the thrill of the dive.
IMOHHO